


The weight of you

by Bill_Longbow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Don't copy to another site, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 02:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20145760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bill_Longbow/pseuds/Bill_Longbow
Summary: After Hydra, Bucky can't stand restraints but he still craves the sensory feeling of being held down so Steve discovers that if he drapes his huge bulky body over Bucky's, he can not only restrain him from moving, but he can also offer comfort and safely and serenity and it's such a relief for the both of them.





	The weight of you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dapperanachronism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapperanachronism/gifts).

> Very late but from a good heart: happy birthday, dap!!
> 
> I found the prompt on [this post](https://stevewuvsbucky.tumblr.com/post/119539164534/securityblanketsteve), which also served as the summary. 
> 
> Thank you to Betheflame for betaing!
> 
> For Bucky Barnes bingo: B4 vulnerabilty  
And Stucky bingo: N3: free space 
> 
> I found it hard to get into Bucky's head in this one, so please let me know what you think!

Ultimately, he let them catch up. At first he was sure he needed to stay as far away from the Captain as he possibly could. Changing identities, cities, countries, in an unpredictable manner. It felt like a mission. Keep a minimum of 700 miles distance to target at all times.

Having a mission was good. It gave purpose in the confusion of his mind. Ever since his target did… something to him, he was either accosted by a maelstrom of images of people and places he didn’t remember, or his mind was a complete blank awaiting his next order.

He didn’t know which he hated more, the confusion or the stillness. He would never go back, of that he was sure, but when remnants of the programming resurfaced he froze like a computer program stuck in a loop. Thinking about his self appointed mission helped, but at the end of the day he was just too damn tired to try anymore.

His mission meant he had to keep close tabs on his target, and the more he saw of the hulking blond, the more his face morphed with that of a different fella; who’s image had haunted him for over 70 years.

_ Stevie _

His memory was more holes than substance, and he meticulously recorded every scrap from _ Before _ that resurfaced. (Never memories from _ After _, though trying to ignore those was as futile as trying to stay dry in a thunderstorm.)

At first they were just words that meant little to him, their meaning lost in the fog of time.

Inhaler

Cyclone

Punk

Or blurry images he couldn’t quite catch when he tried to capture the meaning behind them.

A black eye

The docks

A burning cigarette between long, elegant fingers

An unmade bed

But as weeks went by his brain seemed to recuperate from what they did to him (_ Don’t think of the chair, don’t think of the-- _) and more and more started to make sense.

_ Stevie _

It was all tied to that man in some way he didn’t understand yet, and he knew he needed to find that connection to get better again. Better than this anyway.

After a night where he had woken up from killing Stevie with his bare hands, (his nights were filled with terrors to the extent that he only slept when his body shut down), he packed his meager belongings in his backpack and settled himself at a café in Budapest to wait.

It wasn’t the Captain that came to him. It was the spy. The Widow. Natalia. She had a recurrent part in his nightmares and memories (he didn’t always know which was which). 

“You’re ready?” She asked. He answered with a mirthless chuckle. 

He allowed himself to be handcuffed, and was suspicious of the way she didn’t search him or take his weapons, that wasn’t how he taught her. (_ An image of the lifeless body of a young girl in a ballet costume) _. He knew about the sniper on the rooftop across, and there were the flying man and his drone high overhead, but he could still easily overpower the widow. 

He chose not to. _ This _ was the freedom the Captain had given him. He could choose to kill, and he could choose not to, and deciding _ not _ to gave him a rush as if he jumped out of a plane. 

He walked ahead of her with his head held high, towards the strange aircraft waiting for them on a nearby square. 

The hatch went down, revealing the Captain. The Captain looked overjoyed, but seemed to try and reign it in. _ (A flash of Stevie’s face with the same expression, gone before he could chase it.) _

He didn’t feel the same joy as the Captain obviously did at their reunion. He walked past him into the hold, well aware of how the Captain’s shoulders drooped, but he spared that no attention either. Natalia nudged him towards a glass cage in the middle of the hull and he stepped in without hesitation. He deserved anything they might do to him.

He turned around when the door clicked shut behind him, just in time for the sniper to jog onto the ramp, the Birdman following close behind.

The Captain turned to say something to the Birdman, but his teammate held up a hand before he could start. “Don’t. This is what we agreed on, Steve. To everyone but you it seems more than suspicious the Winter Soldier calmly went for a coffee, after we’ve been chasing him for _ months. _ Putting him into a Hulk chamber seems more than reasonable to me.”

The Captain frowned and didn’t react, looking at the ground as his jaw worked, and the Birdman walked past him to the cockpit, joining the sniper. He was glad the cage didn’t impair his hearing and he could tell they were about to lift off.

After checking the locking mechanism Natalia joined the Captain, both looking at him through the thick glass of the cage. He didn’t know which look was harder to bear. The Captain’s sad but hopeful look, or Natalia’s calculating glance. He didn’t budge though. Being regarded like a toy in a shop window was nothing new to him.

“Why now?” Natalia suddenly asked, her head cocked to the side like he was a puzzle waiting to be solved.

He thought about it. There wasn’t one answer. “I’m tired.”

The grief on the Captain’s face made him uncomfortable in a way he didn’t recognize (and didn’t like), so he moved his gaze to the ground and waited for an order.

They didn’t give him orders. They talked to him and asked him things and confused him, but they didn’t order him. Not once. Not after that first day after he turned himself in and he was walked from the glass cage inside the aircraft to another, bigger one inside their home.

There was Natalia. She observed him, always alert but not unkind.

There was the sniper who was the same, but who hid it among quips. Clint.

There was a soft spoken man who wrung his hands in a nervous habit, but who was gentle as he examined him. He didn’t understand why they let such an obvious civilian into his cage until later.

The Birdman was called Sam, and only came once in a while. Sam didn’t seem to like him much. He couldn’t blame him.

There was a man who looked a lot like a friend he once killed. Tony. Tony talked incessantly, but in between he started to give him choices. Something he only vaguely remembered having. While on the run he had stuck to his mission, and had chosen his outfits and meals and safe houses accordingly. Without a mission, without orders… His brain was going blank more often than before.

It started with a sweater. Blue or black? 

It took him more than seven hours to decide, feeling jittery and nauseous until he settled on the blue one. There was something about the dark blue that he liked. Something that tickled his memory, but it was too far buried to get ahold of. Once he changed out of his dirty henley and into the sweater he relaxed. The sweater was soft and warm and the sleeves fit all the way over his hands. _ Like wearing a hug. _

The next time Tony came in he managed to croak out a "thank you." Tony's answering smile was as warm as the sweater. 

Then there was the Captain. Who insisted he was Stevie, but who looked nothing like Stevie. Maybe a little alike. Sometimes when the Captain smiled, or jutted his jaw, or frowned in a certain way it made a memory of Stevie resurface. But the Captain’s face was large, well fed. His Stevie was frail, delicate like a flower and just as pretty. 

He couldn’t look away from the Captain though. Whenever the Captain told him something about _ Before _ he wanted to curl up with his hands over his head. He didn’t know where the Captain came up with these stories, but some fitted the memories that were steadily gathering in his head - memories or wishful dreams? He didn’t want the Captain to know these things, they were _ his _, but he couldn’t stop listening either. 

  
  


After the sweater came food ("pizza or pancakes, Robocop?"), more clothes, more food. Not too many choices, but enough for him to get better at them. The others started doing it as well. Book or magazine? Movie or talking? When the Captain asked he always chose movie. It made the Captain's shoulders slump, but in the flickering light he could observe the Captain secretly, and note all the differences with _ his _ Stevie. 

  
  


A name. He needed a name. He hadn't had a name for more than seventy years. He hadn’t needed a name for more than seventy years. He wasn’t sure he wanted one now. With a name came expectations and responsibilities. He didn’t think he was ready for those yet, might never be again. 

How do you choose a name? Tony listed a whole host of them for fun, and declared he looked like a Baltazar. 

He didn’t feel like a Baltazar. The only thing that came to mind was a memory that recently had resurfaced and which he guarded jealously. In it, Stevie was curled up in his arms, Steve's blond hair tickling his nose. He wasn’t sure where they were lying; it didn’t matter much. What got to him most was Stevie lifting his head to look him in the eye and say: “I love you, Bucky.” 

Bucky. He wanted to be Bucky again.

  
  


When it took Bucky less than a minute to decide if he wanted coffee or tea, he entered phase two of the 'geriatric rehabilitation of super spy' program, and the fact that the name made him smile spoke of his progress. 

Tony brought in doctors, lawyers, therapists, even a hairdresser, and more choices followed. One of the hardest was choosing to keep his hair long. Everyone sort of assumed he wanted to go back to the short hair Bucky used to have, but he didn't. He liked the long hair. He could hide behind it and he loved how soft it felt. _ (He used to touch soft, blond hair. Wipe it away from a sweaty brow in the middle of the night or tangle his fingers in it while laying on a couch.) _

He wondered how the Captain’s hair felt. 

  
  


Forty-four days after he entered the Avengers Tower, Bucky was faced with another tough decision. The Captain had left the door to his cage unlocked. Bucky knew it wasn’t an accident. There were protocols for how to enter and engage with him. And if the visitors forgot, there was always the voice in the ceiling who could lock his door from a distance.

His door was open because they wanted it to be open, and it made him feel as anxious as choosing the sweater had. Locked away felt safe. He couldn’t accidentally hurt anyone, and they couldn’t get to him either. 

Even more than his name, Hydra had robbed him of his freedom, and he didn’t know what to do with it now someone else tried to give it back. No mission, no orders, no shackles, no locks. 

He crawled into the smallest corner inside the space that had started to feel like home _ (dustmotes playing in the light in between half drawn curtains, Stevie snoring next to him) _ and waited for something to happen. 

  
  


"I brought popcorn, sweet and salty," the Captain said as he came in, two huge tubs of popcorn in his hands. It was seven hours after they left the door unlocked and nothing had happened. Not a thing. Clint had come in to bring him dinner and stayed a while, tossing a ball up and down while recounting some story Bucky still wasn’t sure what the plotline was about because he kept waiting for Clint to come in or say something about the door. He didn’t.

After Clint left Bucky tried to read something. Not on the fancy tablet Tony had given him, but a paperback, vintage of course. He couldn’t concentrate at all, folding and unfolding the book in his hands instead of reading it. (_ Sweltering heat, Stevie lying against his chest, drawing in laborious breaths as Bucky read 20.000 Leagues below the sea to him.) _

Bucky couldn’t figure out what it was. The door was still closed. There was no one in the outer chamber to come in, and Jarvis would warn him when someone was about to enter. Still the knowledge that it was unlocked filled him with a terror he hadn’t experienced yet during his stay here. 

Unlocked meant new possibilities, meant new responsibilities, meant new orders. 

He kept mulling this over and over in his head until the Captain came in. It was a Wednesday night, which meant science fiction night, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember which one they had chosen to watch.

When he didn’t answer, the Captain sat down on the couch in the outer chamber, next to Bucky’s in his cell. “Lemme know which one you fancy later, okay?”

The Captain had gotten pretty good at not expecting Bucky to answer, but he looked at him now, his brows knitted in that way Stevie used to do when he was worried.

“Want me to lock the door again?” he asked Bucky. 

The way he carefully didn’t look at Bucky then, but instead at a thread on his pants, that looked a lot like Stevie as well. Just as the way he had pulled his shoulders almost up to his ears. From this angle he didn’t look that big at all. From this angle he looked an awful lot like Stevie used to when he felt uncomfortable but felt the need to push through regardless. 

“Tell me again how you got big,” Bucky said instead of answering, studying the Captain’s every micro response instead of listening to the story. He had heard it before. A tale he couldn’t write off as unbelievable, not with his own history. _ (Standing high above a factory floor. Flames everywhere. A man who pulled his face off to reveal a red skull underneath.) _

The Captain blushed at the request, took a deep breath as if to steal himself and looked at Bucky for a second in a way that was almost shy. Talking about the flying car made him frown, more even than talking about being rejected by the army did. _ ("Maria, please save Maria…") _

He looked sad when he talked about leaving Bucky behind at the fair, determined when he told about meeting Erskine. Something happened after that, at home, the thought of which made the Captain blush and wipe his bangs from his forehead in a move that was so quintessentially Stevie it made Bucky experience vertigo. 

Bucky didn't listen to the story anymore after that, it was like a valve had opened. Steve. Stevie. 

_ He remembered being angry and scared. Stevie who couldn't walk a mile without his lungs hurting bad wanted to go after Bucky and into the war. And this Erskine person wanted him to do it. He remembered coming home to a dark apartment after spending himself in the dance. He remembered undressing and slipping under the covers. Knowing Stevie was awake by the way he breathed. Pulling him close and kissing every inch of skin. Desperation and sadness and love threatening to overwhelm them both. _

"Steve," Bucky said softly, interrupting the Captain's - Steve's - story. The C-- Steve sat up straight with a jolt, fixing huge blue eyes at Bucky. "I didna wanna leave."

Steve's whole demeanour changed, from hopeful to bone-deep weariness dragging his large body down in a slump. 

"I know," he sighed, rubbing hands that should be smaller over his face. "I know."

"Why didn't we run away?" If he knew one thing, it was that his Stevie didn't play by the rules. (Who Bucky had been still was a mystery.)

"I wouldn't. Neither would you." Steve's smile was sad and wrought with pain. "Said you wouldna do your da the dishonor."

Bucky mulled this over, but the information didn't spark a new memory. He knew he had parents, much in the same way he knew the sky was blue and the grass was green. He thought he had a sister. _ (Chubby arms around his neck. Uncontrollable giggles when he blew a raspberry against the softest skin.) _

“I wish we did,” he stated softly. 

Steve's smile turned even sadder. "We wouldna've been happy."

Bucky nodded. "We were happy? Before?" It should've felt weird. Everything should've been topsy turvy now that he realized Steve and Stevie were one, but it wasn't. It felt more like something finally settled. Another one of the parts of Bucky that were afloat landed in its right spot. 

“Yeah. I was,” Steve sighed softly, the unspoken doubt about Bucky ringing loud in the room.

“I think I was too,” Bucky said. He wasn’t sure if it was true. He thought it might be, most of his memories of _ Before _ contained Stevie. True or not, the smile Steve gave him was worth expressing the sentiment, a smile filled with happiness and hope. It made Bucky feel bolder than he had before.

“You can watch in here, if you want,” he said with a carefully careless shrug, watching Steve from the corner of his eye. The way Steve’s eyes grew and he froze in his spot made Bucky snort, the sensation still so new it made him snort again. 

The noise startled Steve out of his indecision and he rose with a happy grin, a look that Bucky unconsciously had been waiting for. He watched Steve as he came in and settled himself on the opposite end of Bucky’s couch, looking as stiff and uncomfortable as Bucky felt. It was the first time someone shared the cell with him, apart from when Dr. Banner examined him, and the cell felt ten times smaller than it had before. Seeing Steve as nervous as him helped Bucky relax a little, but if someone were to ask him what the movie was about, he wouldn’t be able to answer.

  
  


Steve came over more often. They kept the door off its lock, but no one asked Bucky to come outside or even said anything about it. All was just like it was before, with that difference that if Steve came over he came to sit with Bucky in his cell, instead of on the visitors couch. 

Bucky liked having Steve there. (He sometimes wished Steve was still small. His arms would almost hurt in phantom longing of wrapping themselves around Stevie’s frail form.) It felt safer with Steve in there with him. With Steve there the unlocked door didn’t feel like such a threat. 

  
  
  


When Steve came in one day carrying a huge container of Legos he forgot to shut the door behind him. Bucky didn't correct him. 

  
  


Eleven days after he had invited Steve into his cell Bucky could stand his door being a little ajar. Tony sent him a celebratory bucket of his favourite ice cream (which happened to be Stark Raving Hazelnuts).

  
  


Another four days and Bucky was looking forward to Steve visiting him. It was gin rummy night and Bucky was ahead in their little league, and tonight he had a special surprise. 

“Captain Rogers is approaching, Sergeant,” Jarvis warned him, and Bucky got up from where he sat perched on the armrest of the couch. He had been practicing this all day, but now that it was showtime the nerves made him feel jittery and nauseated. He walked a careful step towards the door, and another, and another, and just as the door to the outer chamber opened to reveal Steve he reached the door to his cell and gave it a push.

The sensation of sudden space that made him feel light headed, enough to make him wobble on his feet. Before he knew it strong arms held him steady, and he sighed in relief. The feeling of being held, the knowledge he couldn’t easily break Steve’s grip, were enough for him to relax in Steve’s hold. 

Steve tried to reassure Bucky as he let himself be led towards the couch in the outer chamber - it didn’t matter much where he was, as long as Steve held onto him - but he paid it no heed. It wasn’t the words but the touch that mattered. He sat down as close to Steve as he could, the tension he had been under constantly starting to melt away with the proximity and he was grateful Steve kept his large arms around him.

“You smell the same,” Bucky eventually said, making Steve huff a laugh.

“You do too, you could do with a bath.”

“Punk.” The nickname rolled easy off his tongue now, sitting like this. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend it was _ Before. _

“_ Bucky,” _ Steve sighed and pulled him even closer. They sat the rest of the night like that without ever touching a card.

  
  


With Steve’s arm around his shoulders Bucky felt strong enough to leave the Hulk room entirely. 

  
  


Tony gave him what he called a broom cupboard, but what Bucky called a bedroom. It was just large enough to house a bed (too soft), a cupboard and a bookcase. It was on Steve’s floor, across from Steve’s bedroom. There was no window, and the door could be locked with both an electronic one and no less than four deadbolts. It was perfect.

  
  


He couldn’t sleep. He had tried everything after tossing and turning for hours. He had crawled in the small space under the bed. He had folded himself into the cupboard. No space felt small enough, _ secure _ enough to be able to relax into slumber.

He crawled from out of the cupboard and walked over to the door to lean his head against the cool wood. Steve had stressed Bucky could always, always come to him.

It was hard to stay calm as he slid the deadbolts from their place and pushed in the code of the lock. Tony had stressed he didn’t need a lock like that because Jarvis was capable of keeping anyone Bucky wanted out, but he had installed it himself nonetheless.

When all he had to do was to turn the knob Bucky felt as nauseated as he did the first time they left his door unlocked, but he pushed the feeling down. That had been different because then he didn’t have Steve yet. Bucky needed Steve, like Bucky had always needed him - whether he was built like Steve or like Stevie - and Steve was just across the hall.

With a firm hand he opened the door and took the two and a half steps necessary to reach the other side of the hall. He hesitated for a second before knocking, but the knowledge that he couldn’t solve this problem on his own gave him the courage to execute one knock.

Immediately he heard noise from inside, like something fell, and muttering, but then Steve opened the door looking rumpled and perfect and Bucky all but fell into his arms. 

Steve hugged him without complaint. Bucky still wasn’t used to the way Steve could lean his head against Bucky’s now, instead of the other way around, but the smell was the same and no one could hold him like Steve could. 

Bucky didn’t need to move, didn’t have to do anything when Steve hugged him. He could just… be. 

After an interminable time hugging on the threshold, Steve pulled away and Bucky couldn’t help the whine of frustration that escaped him at the action. Something flittered over Steve’s face, too quick for Bucky to make out, but then Steve wrapped his large hand around Bucky’s and pulled him further into the room.

“C’mon, let’s get some sleep.”

He pulled Bucky after him towards the bed and kept his hold on Bucky’s hand until they were lying side by side.

It was a little better, lying next to Steve, feeling the warmth radiating off him, being surrounded by his smell.

“You always used to be the big spoon,” Steve whispered in the dark. _ (Cold but happy, golden hair tickling his nose.) _

“I don’t know how anymore,” Bucky whispered back, and was rewarded with Steve wrapping his arm across Bucky’s chest. 

Slowly Bucky started to relax. Feeling Steve from head to toe next to him helped, but it wasn’t enough. There still was too much space to move in. Every part of him that was merely covered with clothing and the blanket felt naked and exposed, and soon the jittery nervous feeling started building again.

“Can you… can you lie on top of me like you did when you were smaller?” Bucky fired the question as fast as his lips could move, and for a second he was afraid it was too much, he had pushed too far. He could almost hear the gears in Steve’s head turning, but then his friend _ (“You’re my best fella, Stevie, don’t matter to me what anyone says.”) _ shrugged and draped himself over Bucky, covering him with his massive weight from head to toe.

Bucky let out a sigh of relief that Steve must’ve mistaken it for alarm because he started to push off again. Bucky wrapped his free arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulled him back. “Stay. Please.”

Carefully, Steve lowered his bulk onto Bucky again and shifted a bit until he was lying comfortable. It was perfect. Bucky could only move his head and his toes, and the one arm, but he snuggled that one under Steve’s chest as well. It was warm, so warm he could never mistake it for cryo, and he felt completely secure.

For the first time since he could remember, he fell into a restful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://bill-longbow.tumblr.com) or join us on the 16+ [ Stuckony discord server ](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) for all things Tony, Bucky and Steve!


End file.
